The present invention relates to electric motors and in particular to the windings of stators in electric motors.
In many forms of electric motor the stator has a number of phases each of which is made up of a number of teeth. Each tooth has a length of conductor wound round it for a number of turns, and the windings on the teeth making up any one of the phases are connected together electrically so that the magnetic fields generated in all of the teeth of the phase are controlled together.
There are a number of ways of forming the windings in such a motor. Some methods result in balanced windings, in which the number of turns is the same for each tooth. Other methods result in unbalanced windings, in which there are different numbers of windings on different teeth.
There are a number of factors which determine the most appropriate winding method for any motor, and these include whether balanced windings are required, packaging limitations due to the small amount of space into which the motor generally needs to fit, and ease of manufacture.